Summer Day
by Strikepenguin5
Summary: A short piece about a summer day in the forest. It's relatively pointless, but then what else are summer days about? (R&R)


            A tree-filled forest, lush with greenery.

            A high-pitched scream of abject terror.

            A red, yellow, orange, black, and pinkish blur.

            The sound of rickety wheels spinning at a far greater rate than their designers intended.

            A cliff face.

            A drop.

            Two cries of impending doom and pain, suddenly cut off by a massive crunch, followed by a pair of thuds.  

            Calvin groggily staggered to his feet, shaking his head to clear his vision.  All he could see was a massive green blur, with a lot of little moving green blurs, a crumpled red blur over to one side, and an orange striped blur over to his left.  

            Calvin sat down heavily, still disoriented from the crash.  As his vision cleared, he sat mesmerized by the slowly falling leaves.  They spun and twirled gently to the ground, dancing in the air and landing gently on the grassy forest floor.  The squeak-spin of one of the wagon wheels assaulted the small boy's hearing as a dull throbbing ache took command of his body.  He felt superglued to the ground, absolutely plastered and stuck to it.  He lay back in the leaf litter and listened to the wind and the still-spinning wheel, and the rustle of the leaves and the grass.  Finally, he heard the groan he was waiting for.

            "How many times do we have to go off that cliff?"  The voice was hoarse from screaming, and its low rumble spoke volumes about the creature it came from, and how much time it needed to recover from the fall.

            "Until we get bored or need Dad to fix the wagon again." 

The squeaking wagon wheel finally rotated off its parent axel and dropped to the ground with a light thud.  A few more leaves fell from the tree, and Calvin brushed some of his unruly blonde hair out of his eyes to see their descent better.

            "I think that did it.  We need to get the wagon fixed again.  We can do something else."  Calvin heard the relief in Hobbes' voice, and decided to squash it.

            "Come on.  We still have three wheels… I think.  We can go down again."

            "Why don't you check, Mr. Smartypants?  I think the wagon has something to say about whether or not it wants to take you down again."

            "Look who's talking- it wouldn't mind it if it didn't have to carry your furry hide around with it."

            "I think the problem is that a certain person keeps on driving it into trees."  Calvin decided he couldn't respond to that remark.  

            "What trip is this?"

            "Our fourteenth."

            "No, it must be our fifteenth."

            "How would you know?  The last time I checked, you had a 'D' in Math."

            "At least I take math."

            "Tigers are born with an inherent knowledge of mathematics."  
            "Sure, like how eleven and twelve are simply eleventy-twelve.  Mrs. Wormwood almost combusted, she was laughing so hard.  Remind me to never let you help me out with math homework again."  

            Hobbes rolled over on his stomach, stretched luxuriously, yawned, and with an aristocratic air, stood on his feet.  A half-second later he spoiled his relaxed demeanor by trying to take a step forward and failing spectacularly.  For the fifteenth time that day, an orange blur hit the leafy forest floor with a thud.

            "Killer of the jungle, sure."

            "Fourteen.  We went off lobotomy peak twice, the third time you went left and took us into the valley of thorns, then we tried horrendous hill and hit the same tree four times, bringing our total up to seven."

            "I follow you."

            "We only went twice on Conniption Canyon, both times we hit rocks and flipped over.  Nine."  

            "I remember those.  Sort of."  Calvin counted the bruises on his legs.  

            "We took Razorback Drop three times, ending up in thorns, a stream, and in a tree.  Twelve."     

            "Right.  The third time you said go right, but I said that got us in the stream last time.  So then you tried to take control…"

            "Right would have been fine if you wouldn't keep launching off that rock.  You should let me drive more."

            "Tigers can't drive!  Besides, we wouldn't have gone into the stream if you hadn't mutinied."

            "Mutiny?  I was trying to save you from your stupidity, mud-for brains!"

            "If you hadn't distracted me, we would have gone left instead of straight!  It was your fault, you pin-striped weasel."

            "Weasel?  It takes one to know one, you mindless midget!"

            "Midget?  You take that back!"

            Calvin scrambled up on his feet and lunged at his reclining orange companion.  Shouts filled the air as a new rain of leaves poured from the trees.  The fight was short and brutal, and it ended up with Calvin's head in Hobbes' mouth.

            "Hey!  No biting!  No Biting!"  Cried Calvin's muffled voice.  He flailed his arms and legs, trying to squirm out of Hobbes' maw.

            "Phooey!"  Hobbes spit the soggy-haired six-year old on the ground and made a face.  "Humans are the spam of the animal kingdom."

            "Great.  Now even my bruises have bruises."

            "Don't blame me.  You attacked me, and you got most of those bruises from our two trips down Widowmaker Precipice."  Hobbes spat again and wiped his mouth.  "It was like eating a live rug."

            "Now you see why I don't take baths?  It's a defense mechanism against marauding predators and girls!"

            Hobbes smiled a predatory smile.

            "You know, some girls think that sweaty, smelly guys are manly.  I know the REAL reason you don't take baths!"

            "Come back here and say that!"  Calvin wiped the last tiger saliva off his face with his shirt and ran at Hobbes again.  Hobbes simply laughed and ran just out of Calvin's reach.  Calvin chased Hobbes through sunlit glades as the forest echoed with laughter and shouting.  They traded insults and exaggerations as they ran, the fleet-footed tiger always staying one step ahead of the small-legged six-year old.  

            At the end of the day, with a brilliant sunset behind them, two figures trudged home.  They were covered in dirt, scratched and bruised, with burrs and seeds clinging to fur and clothes alike.  One of them dragged a dilapidated red wagon that squeaked along the way home, its broken wheel resting peacefully in the wagon bed as the axel dragged a furrow in the ground.  Calvin's spiky hair contained a school report's worth of leaves and a small mountain of dirt, Hobbes' sleek fur fared little better.  Shadows lengthened as the burning globe of the sun dipped behind the trees and set the clouds aflame.  

            The two figures turned to watch as the majesty of the heavens blazed above them, darkening at the edges and shifting slowly from gold into red into the deep blue of evening.  Crickets slowly began their chirping as a six year old and his tiger stood awestruck by the slow fade of afternoon into evening.  A large, slow beetle buzzed its bumbling way along the ground, wings fighting to keep its bulbous body stable.

            Calvin rocketed off in pursuit of the bug, Hobbes sprang into the chase a second later.  They left the wagon behind in pursuit of weirdness and followed it as it landed on convenient flowers and rocks, buzzing and humming its way over the gently rolling hills.  

            The two figures faded into darkness as night finally fell: the spiky-haired boy and the black-striped tiger bounding side by side towards unknown adventures.  Stars slowly winked into view as the pair crossed the horizon and their shadows disappeared from sight.

            Patiently, the wagon waited.  It knew they would return.  

The End


End file.
